These agricultural households were about 57.8% of the total estimated rural households. Uttar Pradesh, with an estimate of 18.05 million agricultural households, accounted for about 20% of all agricultural households in the country. Among the major states, Rajasthan had the highest percentage of agricultural households (78.4%) among its rural households followed by Uttar Pradesh (74.8%) and Madhya Pradesh (70.8%). Kerala had the least percentage share of agricultural households (27.3%) in its rural households preceded by other southern states like Tamil Nadu (34.7%) and Andhra Pradesh (41.5%).

The NSSO’s previous such survey (the ‘Situation Assessment Survey of Farmers’) was conducted in 2003. The differences between the two, a decade apart, have been explained by the NSSO. First, such surveys aim to gather an assessment of the situation of our farmers and farming households.

This assessment determines a standard of living as measured by consumer expenditure, income and productive assets, the indebtedness of farmers and farming households, farming practices and preferences, what resources are available to them, their awareness of technological developments and access to such technologies. The survey for the 2012-13 agricultural year also collected information on crop loss, crop insurance and awareness about the Minimum Support Price (MSP).

Second, the big difference between the two surveys is that the new survey has dropped the criterion of land possession for considering a household agricultural. “Recognising the fact that significant agricultural activity can be conducted without possessing any land, the definition of ‘farmer’ and ‘farmer household’ followed in NSS 59th Round was critically reviewed and the land possession as an eligibility criterion was dispensed with, replacing it with the concept of ‘agricultural production unit’ as one which produces field crops, horticultural crops, livestock and the products of any of the other specified agricultural activities,” is how the new survey (called the 70th Round) has explained its decision.

I find this puzzling and an aspect that needs careful probing. We know, from a close scrutiny of the Census 2011 data at the district level, that the number of people and households engaged in cultivation and farming has dropped when compared to the last census, in 2001, and the previous census, in 1991 (as a percentage of the rural working population but in several cases as absolute population numbers too).

What reason could the NSSO have had to amend the definition it used ten years earlier? “With a view to keep the large number of households with insignificant agricultural activities out of survey coverage, it was decided to have a minimum value of agricultural produce for a household to qualify as an ‘agricultural production unit’,” the NSSO has explained. I cannot follow this reasoning. Are urban households which make negligible contributions to the local gross domestic product to be kept out of surveys that ought to assess their conditions – such as those with pensioners and informally employed people who get by on job work?

If this is the basis for exclusion, what qualifies a household for inclusion in the survey? The NSSO has considered average Monthly Household Consumer Expenditure (MHCE) for “home grown consumption of some specific items” and adopted a cut-off value amount of 3,000 rupees worth of annual agricultural produce. The activities which provided such value are given as “cultivation of field crops, horticultural crops, fodder crops, plantation, animal husbandry, poultry, fishery, piggery, bee-keeping, vermiculture, sericulture etc” with such a household “having at least one member self-employed in agriculture either in the principal status or in subsidiary status during last 365 days”.

This cut-off value amount needs investigation. So does the idea of an ‘agricultural production unit’. And the NSSO for this survey has also excluded households which are entirely agricultural labour households, those households receiving income entirely from coastal fishing, as also the activity of “rural artisans and agricultural services”. Nonetheless, these data are important and useful for our understanding of the changes that have taken place in the food and agriculture domain.

Soon after the liberalisation of India’s economy in 1991 the rise in the average annual salary of the non-worker employee rose faster than that of the worker. From 1998-99, the difference became more pronounced and further from 2006-07 became very much more so.

When did the income gap between worker and white collar employee widen? The Central Statistics Office of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation has released its Annual Survey of Industries 2011-2012 for the factory sector. This small but significant compilation helps trace the evolution and trend of the gap in incomes from 1981-82 to 2011-12.

Using the figures given for wages and number of workers, the annual wages per worker (at current rates for that year) becomes available, so does the annual salary for non-worker employees. From 1981-82, when average wages per worker in the factory sector was Rs 7,197 it took 23 years for the wages to cross Rs 50,000. The rise was faster in the annual salary for non-worker employees which began at an average of Rs 13,325 in 1981-82 and crossed Rs 50,000 in 13 years.

In 1993-94, when the annual salary for non-worker employees crossed Rs 50,000 it was about 1.9 times the annual wages of the worker. In 2003-04 when the annual average wages of the worker crossed Rs 50,000 the annual average salary of the non-worker employee was about 3.1 times more. That gap continued to grow – 3.8 times more in 2007-08 and 4 times more in 2011-12.

While the next Rs 50,000 rise in the annual average wages of the worker took another nine years (from Rs 50,000 to Rs 100,000), over the same period (2003-04 to 2012-13) the annual average salary of the non-worker employee rose from Rs 156,000 to Rs 422,000 (adding the last year as a continuation of the trend, for this MoSPI series halts at 2011-12).

What households in India spent, in crore rupees and all put together, on major food categories in 2011-12.

How much do Indian households, all of them put together, spend on fruit and vegetables in a year? How much do they spend on pulses, or footwear, or transport? The Private Final Consumption Expenditure (PFCE) tells us, and these enormous figures are calculated by the Central Statistics Office (CSO), of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI).

The Central Statistics Office has now released the ‘First Revised estimates of National Income, Consumption Expenditure, Saving and Capital Formation’ for the financial year 2011-12. Here, in the biggest of big numbers for an ocean of motley small purchases, is what we now know: that Private Final Consumption Expenditure (or PFCE, to add to the army of acronyms) at current prices is estimated at INR 5,056,219 crore in 2011-12 as against INR`4,349,889 crore in 2010-11. In constant (2004-05) prices, the PFCE is estimated at INR 3,334,900 crore in 2011-12 as against INR 3,088,880 crore in 2010-11.

(How to deal with big numbers? An Indian crore is ten million. so 990,511 crore in the paragraph below is 9.905 trillion!)

It is the food category of the PFCE that I am interested in and, at current prices, consumption expenditure by India’s households on food has risen from NR 990,511 crore (about USD 182 billion) in 2008-09 to INR 1,472,086 crore (about USD 271 billion) in 2011-12 (in current prices, the corresponding figures in constant 2004-05 prices are INR 929,881 crore and INR 1,046,228 crore).

There is an earlier year given, 2004-05, which is the year to which the constant price has been based, and it becomes useful to use this to estimate the rise (in a straight line for convenience) for the intervening years to provide a sense of what components of the food main category are rising more quickly than others.

Under food, the component with the highest PFCE is ‘fruits and vegetables’ with INR 372,727 crore – see the pie chart. This is followed by ‘milk and milk products’ with INR 332,728 crore and by ‘cereals and bread’ with INR 323,592 crore.

Using the set of current prices, and examining the increases in PFCE for two periods – 2008-09 to 2011-12, and 2004-05 to 2011-12 – we can see which food components have attracted the greatest expenditure. These increases (as they are calculated using current prices) are likely to be as much a tale of inflation in the price of that food component as they are to be due to the changing dietary patterns in urban and rural India.

Hence we see the expenditure on ‘potato and other tubers’ having risen 78% in 2011-12 from 2008-09, and this is the steepest food component rise (this is a puzzle). Close behind is the 76% increase in ‘hotel and restaurants’ which undoubtedly reflects the growing new tendency (especially amongst youth who have migrated to cities to take up service sector jobs) to eat their meals out. Expenditure on ‘tobacco and its products’ from 2008-09 to 2011-12 has risen 61% while on ‘milk and milk products’ it has risen 59% over the same period, and this gives a number to the explosion of dairy products in the last five years.

The data have just been released of the National Sample Survey Organisation’s 64th Round, on Household Consumer Expenditure in India, 2007-08 (survey period July 2007 – June 2008). The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, Government of India, has put out the findings in its report No 530. A sample of 31,673 rural households and 18,624 urban households spread over the entire country was surveyed in the Consumer Expenditure Survey of the 64th round. The highlights:

Level of consumption in 2007-08

1. Average Monthly Per Capita Consumer Expenditure (MPCE) in 2007-08 was Rs.772 in rural India and Rs.1472 in urban India at 2007-08 prices. About 65% of the rural population had MPCE lower than the national rural average. For urban India the corresponding proportion was 66%.

2. The survey estimated that in 2007-08, around one-half of the Indian rural population belonged to households with MPCE less than Rs.649 at 2007-08 prices. In 2006-07, the corresponding level of MPCE for the rural population had been estimated as Rs.580.

Rytu (farmer) of north Karnataka

3. In urban India, one-half of the population belonged to households with monthly per capita consumer expenditure less than Rs.1130. In 2006-07, the corresponding level of MPCE for the urban population had been estimated as Rs.990.

4. About 10% of the rural population had MPCE under Rs.400. The corresponding figure for the urban population was Rs.567, that is, 42% higher. At the other extreme, about 10% of the rural population had MPCE above Rs.1229. The corresponding figure for the urban population was Rs.2654, that is, 116% higher.

5. Real MPCE (base 1987-88) was estimated to have grown by about 21% from 1993-94 to 2007-08 (that is, over a 14-year period) in rural India and by about 36% in urban India. The annual real terms increase from 2006-07 to 2007-08 in average rural MPCE was 2.2% and in average urban MPCE was 5.4%.

Pattern of consumption in 2007-08 and share of food

1. Out of every rupee of the value of the average rural Indian’s household consumption during 2007-08, the value of food consumed accounted for about 52 paise. Of this, cereals and cereal substitutes made up 16 paise, while milk and milk products accounted for 8 paise.

Crowds at a religious gathering in Mumbai, India

2. Out of every rupee of the value of the average urban Indian’s household consumption during 2007-08, the value of food consumed accounted for about 40 paise. Of this, cereals and cereal substitutes made up 9 paise, while milk and milk products accounted for 7 paise.

3. While the share of most of the food item groups in total consumption expenditure was higher in rural India than in urban India, fruits and processed food were exceptions. For non-food item groups, the share was usually higher in urban India. The noticeable differences were in case of rent (urban share: 6%, rural share: 0.4%), education (urban: 7%, rural: 3.7%), consumer services other than conveyance (urban: 7.8%, rural: 4.5%), and conveyance (urban: 6.4%, rural: 4%).

4. The share of milk and milk products in total consumption expenditure was found to rise steadily in rural India with MPCE level from under 3% in the bottom decile class to nearly 10% in the ninth decile class. The share of fuel and light was about 12% for the poorest decile class of the rural as well as of the urban population and fell steadily with rise in MPCE to 7% for the top decile class in rural India and to 6% in urban India.

5. The share of food in total consumption expenditure of rural households varied among the major states from 41% for Kerala and 44% for Punjab to 58-60% for Orissa, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Assam and Bihar. In the urban sector the share of food expenditure varied between 36% (Kerala and Chhattisgarh) and 47% (Assam and Bihar).

6. Tobacco was consumed in as many as 61% households in rural India compared to 36% households in urban India. About 62% of rural households and 59% of urban households were estimated to have consumed egg, fish or meat during the last 30 days. In non-food items, consumption on account of entertainment was reported by 28% of rural households and 63% of urban households. Consumer expenditure for rent was reported by only 7% of rural households and 38% of urban households.